The present invention relates to a device for packaging a product in an envelope.
Said product is, in particular, defined by a group of articles, specifically defined by cigarettes or the like, to be packaged in a corresponding box-shaped body, or packet, preferably made of paperboard.
Currently, to package cigarettes, they must be wrapped inside an envelope, or wrapping sheet of various type, usually made of aluminium film, which completely wraps the product for the purpose of preserving the aroma, and subsequently be inserted in a corresponding box-shaped body.
For this purpose, prior art has proposed various systems, such as those described in the documents U.S. Pat. No. 4,603,534 and EP-A-1854726, which comprise a longitudinal channel, into which cigarettes are supplied until encountering a small sheet, laid transversely to the movement of the cigarettes, which is engaged and drawn by the cigarettes, forming a sort of “U” around these cigarettes.
However, these systems are composed of a large number of components and are particularly bulky and difficult to service.
In particular, these prior art systems require the use of bulky mechanisms to supply the sheet in the advancement channel of the cigarettes and specific means adapted to weaken the sheet, according to respective pre-folded lines, immediately before it is picked up by the cigarettes, in order to prevent damaging them and to produce a wrapper, bent around the product, which has well-defined bend lines, without producing unwanted rounded edges.
These prior art devices are, all in all, burdensome, bulky and difficult to configure in the case of variations to the specifications of the packaging to be implemented.